CRF Lava Beds Memorial Day 1998
Robert's Shortest Trip Report
by Robert Jon Mudry

I always look forward to my trips to Lava Beds, and this time I even managed to convince my wife to join us. Since it was late May, I anticipated the nicest weather since I started doing these CRF trips back in November of 1997. Unfortunately, things started going wrong before we even managed to get on the road. Mainly, the rental car fell through, and my attempts at renting another vehicle on Memorial Day were rather unsuccessful.

Since my wife wasn't feeling very well to begin with, the rest of us squeezed into my little '91 Camaro and attempted the journey much later then generally advisable. Of course this is nothing new--I don't recall ever getting to Lava Beds before midnight, and lately it has been closer to three or four in the morning. In any event, I was rather bummed about having to leave my wife behind, and three cavers with full camping and caving gear in Camaro for over nine hours isn't exactly comfortable.

On the way up, we were supposed to meet up with one of Cindy's friends about an hour north of Redding. We ended up getting to the rest stop several hours late, and there was of course no sign of her. We sat around for awhile, with that weird feeling you get when you're late at a meeting place and aren't sure if the other party is even later then you are, or decided to go on without you, or worse. We left after a half an hour, realizing that she probably moved on without us.

We pulled in at maybe half past one, or so, and of course everyone was asleep. Thankfully, Bill managed to find us an apartment, so we didn't have to crash at the campground. I really wished my wife could have been there, and I couldn't even call her because my cell phone gets horrible reception up there, but there wasn't much I could do about it then. Next time, I promised myself, I would make sure she went up with me.

Ice Levels
The first day would be dedicated to taking ice levels in a half-dozen caves throughout the park. This involves finding the coldest caves possible, wading across the ice and water, and hanging around until you're nice and numb. The first step is to find the fixed point on the cave wall from which other readings have been taken throughout the year. Generally, there is a thin layer of water covering the ice, and your task is to measure from the fixed point to this water level, and then down to the ice. From this data, we can watch the ice and water levels fluctuate, and hopefully spot any dangerous (or promising) trends. A sensitive digital thermometer was also employed, to detect any changes in the caves air temperature. Even if ice levels haven't receded, an extra half a degree increase in air temperature could indicate the beginning of a big problem. This is all important because the ice and water in the handful of ice caves is the sole source of water for the park's native wildlife. For example, a sudden drop, or complete loss, of ice in one or more caves could leave the bat population in chaos. If the bats are forced to leave, or their population drops, the effects will ripple through the ecosystem, affecting everything from the insect population to the plant life. I don't pretend to understand the complexities involved, but I do know that everything is connected, and a single break in the chain, or even slight disturbance, can devastate the entire ecosystem.

Actually, I felt a bit like an extra wheel during this entire exercise. Only one person was needed to work the thermometer, and another to measure the levels. Since there were five of us, that left three idle. I did get an opportunity to poke around a bit, that I wasn't there for recreation, so I felt a bit bad about the whole thing. Next time I hope to be of more assistance. We just had too many people doing the ice levels, but too few to split the group up.

In any event, we finished up a bit early and had some time to finish a survey in a cave where the original group missed a passage. I was pretty excited to get some surveying in, but when I saw the "missed passage," my enthusiasm rapidly waned. A small, breakdown covered chamber, large enough for perhaps three cavers, sported a nasty looking thirty foot chimney. It looked climbable, even for me, but the nature of the breakdown looked a little sketchy to me. Giant blocks of breakdown were just hovering in mid-air, with no visible means of support. One block looked to be held in place by a mere quarter-sized friction point.

While pondering this, the thought suddenly occurred to me that the breakdown we were sitting on was probably hovering half-way up the chimney as well, and the whole rotten thing could come crashing down at any moment. Not the most comfortable thought. But still, my curiosity and sense of exploration was in an intense battle with common sense and acceptable risk. Eventually, we decided to call it quits and worry about it some other day. Perhaps if I wasn't already pretty tired I would have been more open to the idea of continuing, but without years of caving experience under my belt, the whole thing just looked a bit too unstable to me.

Trench Survey
The following day was the Merrill Trench survey. We essentially started at the end of one cave, and surveyed our way straight down the trench and through about six other caves along the way. In one end, out the other, in one end, out the other. We had at least a good 2000 feet of survey, cave and trench combined. For some of the trench shots, we tied up to three 100 foot tapes together. Of course, I managed to find another one of those "what's holding it all together" passages in one of the caves. I crawled down about twenty feet and put my hand on something which shifted dramatically, making an rather disturbing noise. Over to the left, a single rock was holding it all together, with just two small contact points. Yikes!

Reluctantly, I pointed the passage out to Cindy, who checked it out to about the point I did, and decided it was significant enough to put on the map, but probably not a good idea to survey right now since we were all a bit too tired to work in a passage with such dubious stability. We marked it "possible cave passage" and moved on.

Personally I found this length of trench to be a bit too unstable for my liking, and while the others thought I was overreacting, there were some close calls. In particular, one of Bill's legs broke through a dome near the edge of the trench, and by pure luck, he managed to get away with only a sore leg and some bruises. It could have been much worse, and should be a reminder to everyone that even on an "easy" Lava Beds trip, you can end up very seriously injured.

Regardless of any slight difficulties we may have had, it was a fun and productive day. Even though we started getting a bit "out of synch" towards the end, I think we did pretty well for a group who hasn't surveyed together previously.

I particularly enjoyed whining and groaning about the backsight team's placement of each station. Let's just say I had a few really creative shots. But I admit it, I enjoyed dangling off the back end of a spire or large boulder, and I enjoyed complaining about it even more. Note, however, that is not an open invitation...

After completing the trench survey, Bill, Lysa, and I wandered off to try and find a little cave with another "forgotten passage." Cindy, who had been hunched over a survey book all day, opted to call it a night, but it didn't really matter because we never managed to find the thing.

I did stumble onto a small sink with another tiny cave. Due to the vegetation and apparent lack of disturbance, it seemed to be "undiscovered." But "poor me," without a recon card, didn't get to sketch it. I was pretty tired by then, too, and was more then happy to let it go until next time.

Not tired enough to skip a late night of "looping," hitting several of the developed caves along Cave Loop Road. We had a wonderful time, but ended up walking back in a driving, cold rain which soaked us all pretty good. Just before dozing off that night, I looked out the window and noticed the rain had turned to snow. I was too tired to worry about getting the Camaro out of there in the morning, and drifted off to a good solid night of sleep.

It was a good trip, and we really did get a lot of work done, in spite of the small group size. Once again, I have plenty to look forward to on the next trip!

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